The Beauty of a Rare Thing

I like to think that the extended period of intense training required to run 100 miles is a normal part of my life. That the satisfaction from focused training, the time spent in nature, the lower stress, and the improved daily fitness is what I am truly after. It's more of a lifestyle and something that I would do regardless of the existence of racing in order to reap the myriad of benefits from this tremendous effort. I must admit though that the bodies lined up to run 100 miles on race morning are undoubtedly the fittest they will ever be in life. The event is a celebration of this peak physical condition which one experiences briefly.

As I begin to ramp up my training, building up my body from a basic level of fitness to hopefully run 100 miles in the summer, I am struck with how far I have to climb to get back to where I was at. It is an unavoidable fact that the shape my body was in was a unique occurrence which took months and years of consistent effort to reach. We can aspire to reach these peaks but attempting to stay at them is futile. The beauty of this is that it makes those moments and memories even more special. To look back and say 'how did I do that?' And look back even further to a time when you said 'can I do that?'